


and i took you by the hand

by stonestars



Series: our hearts (that beat as one) - soulmate au [1]
Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Soulmates, F/F, Gen, Soulmates
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-02
Updated: 2019-05-02
Packaged: 2020-02-15 23:35:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,177
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18679588
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/stonestars/pseuds/stonestars
Summary: (part one of a soulmate au)Yasha's soulmates are; brown eyes shining in the moonlight and red eyes glinting in lantern-light, familiar pale violet runes on her feathers and bright purple foreign letters against her skin, a secret wedding and an expected-unexpected meeting(and, later, five people she meets in an inn)





	and i took you by the hand

**Author's Note:**

> this is the first part of a soulmate au with people's platonic and romantic soulmate's names appearing on their skin; this part covers Yasha up until she meets the Mighty Nein -- title is from After the Storm by Mumford and Sons

In the Dolorov Tribe, you have two names.

 

One is your title, the name that the tribe knows you as. It is given to you by the Sky Spear, and it is the name you give freely when someone asks. The other is your private name, and there’s a reason it is kept secret.

 

It is the name that will appear on your soulmate’s skin, and the Dolorov Tribe does not believe in soulmates the same way the rest of the world does. Soulmates in the Dolorov Tribe are not taboo, but they do not hold weight like they do elsewhere. The Sky Spear chooses your mate, and the Sky Spear does not know your soulmate. And that is that.

 

When Yasha earned the name Orphan Maker, she was young enough that the title became second nature. She swung her blade easily, and gave the name equally so. (And tended to ignore the other name nestled in the crook of one of her wings, written in soft shimmering pale violet and curling Celestial letters.)

 

Things change for Yasha one evening while she is on watch. The Iothia Moorlands are calm despite the storm rolling in in the distance, and Yasha has forgone attentiveness for practicing with her blade, the metal shining in the moonlight.

 

“Are you the one they call Orphan Maker?” a quiet voice says from behind her, and Yasha spins quickly to level her sword at the newcomer.

 

Soft brown eyes meet hers, the curve of a smile appearing on the newcomer’s lips as Yasha’s sword flashes towards her. She tips her head, showing Yasha her empty hands.

 

Yasha lowers her sword. “Apologies, I’m not used to people sneaking up on me during watch.”

 

“In that case, you were doing a very good job watching,” the woman says, her smile growing as she holds a hand out. “I believe we’ve met in passing, but the Sky Spear has rearranged some of the hunting parties. We’ll be in the same one starting tomorrow, so I thought I’d say hello.”

 

Yasha sheathes her sword, now, and slowly takes the woman’s hand. “I think-- you were part of Quick Slayer’s party, weren’t you?”

 

The woman goes to say something, but reconsiders. She nods. “And now you are too,” she says, shaking Yasha’s hand and then lowering her arm. Yasha notices the white war paint of a spear fighter swirling down her right forearm, bright in the moonlight.

 

Yasha blinks a few times. She’d assumed the woman would be transferring into her party, not the other way around, but perhaps the change of pace will be good. “Well then, I will be looking to you for guidance,” she says.

 

The woman laughs softly. “I’ll do my best to guide you.” A strong breeze blows across the grasses from the storm in the distance, blowing their hair around. “I am Zuala, it’s a pleasure-- oh, I only know your title. In our party we tend to go by--” she continues speaking, but Yasha isn’t listening anymore.

 

_Zuala._ The name shouldn’t be familiar to her-- wouldn’t be familiar to her-- except she has read it a hundred times over. She has tucked her feathers carefully over it and spread a little bit of warpaint on her wings to hide it, it’s--

 

“Are you alright?” Zuala is looking up into her eyes through the hair that has been blown into Yasha’s face by the storm’s winds.

 

Yasha blinks rapidly. “I--” she begins, and then words fail her. She doesn’t know how to mention it, _if_ she should mention it. She’s tried to ignore it but… she can’t say she hasn’t wondered, on nights where she’s alone, about the girl behind the name.

 

“I can use your title, if that’s the issue?” Zuala looks worried now, a hand reaching over to rest lightly on Yasha’s forearm.

 

Yasha finds her voice again. “No, it’s not. It’s--” she takes a deep breath. “I’ll just… show you.” She takes a deep breath and focuses on the light inside her, letting her wings unfurl.

 

She keeps her eyes closed, nervous for Zuala’s reaction. “What are you show--” her voice stops, and with her eyes closed, Yasha can’t see the smile that spreads across her face. But when the silence stretches on, Yasha can’t help but crack her eyes open anxiously. Zuala’s eyes are fixed on the name and, unlike whatever Yasha was expecting, she’s beaming. “Oh!”

 

“Oh?” Yasha asks tentatively.

 

Zuala’s smile does not fade. “You’re Yasha.”

 

Yasha should’ve expected this, somehow, but the response nearly knocks her her breath away. She nods.

 

Zuala licks her thumb and starts to rub away at the paint on her wrist. “I didn’t think I’d find you,” she says, and Yasha can only watch as some of the white lingers, turning pale grey. Her name, in Celestial. She’s never seen it written before. “I’d dared to hope, but I didn’t think--” Zuala stops herself, seeming to register Yasha’s silence. “Are you alright?”

 

Yasha nods. “I just… don’t know what to say,” she says. She takes Zuala’s wrist carefully, turning it up so that she can read the letters better. “I didn’t even dare think about…” She sighs and tries again. “I don’t know much about being someone’s--” she gestures vaguely.

 

Zuala’s eyes are shining brightly. “Neither do I,” she says. She reaches up to run her fingers along Yasha’s feathers. “We’ll figure it out together.”

 

\--

 

Zuala is; mud caked on leather and tangled hair, the wind whipping through her wings and their hands clasped tightly together, laughter in the moonlight and a heart that beats with hers.

 

Loving Zuala is; sharing meals when she’s never had someone to share her meals with before, wordless understanding and fingers resting gently on skin or feathers, easier than anything she’s ever done before.

 

So easy that when Zuala, laying on her back in the moor’s grasses during one of their watches, looks up at Yasha and says “marry me,” Yasha doesn’t even have to think before she nods.

 

They marry in the moonlight, because they met in the moonlight and because it’s the only time they can. Zuala picks handfuls of grasses and calls them flowers. They braid each other’s hair back and exchange unplanned vows and wish the sun wouldn’t rise so soon. They can’t trade rings-- nothing would get them found out faster-- so they exchange necklaces of braided leather cords that blend in with their armor enough to remain hidden.

 

When Yasha says “I love you,” she says it with a certainty she has never said anything with before. And when Zuala says “I love you,” Yasha believes it like she’s never dared to believe anything before.

 

Life isn’t easy, it never was. But it’s easier with Zuala by her side, and Yasha is happier than she’s ever been.

 

And then someone wakes up during their watch. Neither of them notice, as they chat idly in the moonlight, the pair of eyes watching as Yasha leans down to kiss Zuala’s forehead. They don’t notice the pair of ears listening as Zuala giggles out an “I love you” and Yasha replies “and I you.” They don’t notice the shifting of the grasses as feet move nimbly towards the Sky Spear’s tent.

 

They don’t think anything of Zuala being called to the Sky Spear’s tent just as their party is about to set out on a hunt. Or, Yasha doesn’t. Until they’re coming back to the tribe’s camp and Yasha, who’s fallen a bit behind the rest of the party, looks up to see the Sky Spear on an elevated platform in the center of camp, holding Zuala by the back of the neck.

 

Until she meets Zuala’s eyes and watches her soulmate mouth “ _go.”_ Yasha shakes her head, goes to unfurl her wings and fly forward towards Zuala…

 

But Zuala mouths _“go”_ again and then the wind carries her voice-- “Yasha! I love you--” and Yasha hears _go, I love you, go, live, go, run, go--_

 

And she’s running, and then flying, and then running again, and she doesn’t stop until the sounds of her tribe disappear behind her and her wings have disappeared too and all she can think is _Zuala, Zuala, Zuala._

 

She never unfurls her wings again. She knows what happens when your soulmate dies, knows that the color disappears and leaves behind a scar, and she doesn’t think she can bring herself to look at the scar of her cowardice. To really _know_ that Zuala is gone.

 

Months later, she comes to awareness at a stone altar as storm clouds gather overhead. Her wings are already out, except they aren’t _her_ wings. They’re black and tattered and skeletal and… she doesn’t have to see the scar where Zuala’s name was because there’s no skin there anymore to even hold a scar.

 

She reaches for her neck to find the necklace gone, too, and the wings stretch out towards the sky as she looks up and, voice cracking, screams into the brewing storm.

 

\--

 

Yasha doesn’t notice the bright purple letters on her shoulder until much later, when the storm has cleared and she’s stopped at a river to drink and wash the tears from her cheeks. There’s a glint of color on her left shoulder and she looks down and sees them and almost cries again.

 

The letters are in a language she doesn’t recognize-- definitely not Celestial or Common or even Abyssal, which she knows somehow-- but she knows the name they spell. _Mollymauk._

 

She reaches into the mud on the riverbank and smears it over her shoulder. When she catches her dinner, she makes a crude shoulder pad out of the fox’s pelt to cover it.

 

For a while, she resents this Mollymauk. They even dared to share Zuala’s purple-- though the color is much brighter and, though it shines, it doesn’t shimmer in the same way.

 

She makes herself two promises. The first; this soulmate is a platonic one. The second; she still will not let them in.

 

But eventually, she starts to think of the look in Zuala’s eyes when she’d read her name on Yasha’s wings, the feeling in her own chest when she saw her name on Zuala’s wrist, the joy they felt when they were together. Can she really just take that away from someone else because of her own cowardice?

 

That is the question that is turning over in her mind when she nearly steps on something colorful. It takes her a moment to realize that it’s a flower, sprouting up from the green of the grass around it. She’s walked for so long now that she’s unsure where she is, but this makes her certain that she isn’t in the Xhorhasian moorlands anymore. Because as she looks up and takes in her surroundings, she notices quite a few wildflowers of various colors.

 

The one under her foot, however, is a shade of purple somewhere between Zuala’s and the new mark on her shoulder.

 

She runs her hand over the petals and takes a deep breath. She's been following signs, and it doesn't feel right to ignore this one. “Mollymauk,” she says out loud for the first time. She nods down to the flower, as if Zuala or Mollymauk or the god who had saved her-- the Stormlord-- was watching. “I’ll try.”

 

\--

 

She meets him soon enough.

 

She’d been walking alone when she’d come across a group of travelers defending their tents from some wolf-like beasts. She’d followed her first instinct and jumped in to defend a lanky half elf who had been knocked down by one of them, and now she’s standing awkwardly as the half elf-- Gustav, he’d told Yasha as he’d introduced himself enthusiastically and thanked her for saving him-- and a larger half orc look her up and down.

 

“What do you think, Bo?” Gustav asks as Yasha shifts uncomfortably.

 

“I think we need more security,” Bo responds, “and she’s already proven useful in a fight.”

 

Gustav beams up at her, spreading his arms. “What do you think, Miss…”

 

Yasha looks down. “Yasha,” she says quietly.

 

“Yasha! The Fletching and Moondrop Traveling Carnival of Curiosities would be _more_ than happy to provide you with coin and company, if you provide us with your blade in turn.”

 

Yasha takes a deep breath, vaguely registering that it’s going to storm later. Her new god has been quiet, for a while, and this is as much of a sign as any. “Food, too?”

 

Gustav’s grin widens, which she didn’t think was possible. “Why, of course! We’ll get you set up with… let’s see, we have another relatively newcomer who could use a tentmate. Bo, go get Tealeaf, will you?”

 

Yasha watches Bo disappear into one of the tents and looks back to Gustav. “I don’t have much need for coin,” she says. “Just food, a place to sleep, and… freedom. I may go off sometimes. I will do my best to come back.”

 

Gustav’s brow furrows for a second but he nods. “Well, who can argue with that?” he says.

 

Bo emerges from the tent leading a purple tiefling with a few tattoos of what look like red eyes on his skin, and a very colorful coat that he’s in the process of putting on.

 

The tiefling looks Yasha up and down as he approaches and then stops in front of her, an easy smile on his face. “So you’re the newcomer who saved Gustav’s life. It’s a pleasure,” he extends a hand. The feeling in Yasha’s chest tells her what’s coming next. “Name’s Mollymauk, Molly to my friends. Which we will be, I can tell."

 

Even though she knew it was coming, she still inhales sharply at the name, hyper-aware of the mark on her shoulder. Mollymauk is the only one who seems to notice, his eyebrows furrowing, and she forces herself to shake his hand before he makes something out of it. “Yasha,” she says softly, not daring to watch for a reaction. “I’ll be in your care.”

 

His hand squeezes hers once and then falls away. “Well,” he says, gesturing back towards the tent he’d left. “If there’s no more business here, I’ll show our new friend the ropes.” His hand loops around Yasha’s waist before she can protest, and she’s being pulled towards the tent as Mollymauk tells Gustav that “you’d better call us for dinner, if I’m not mistaken Yasha here is the reason we’re eating so well in the first place!”

 

As soon as the tent flap falls behind them, Mollymauk is in front of her, red eyes staring up into hers intensely. “You’re Yasha.”

 

Yasha’s mouth goes dry. She swallows. “You’re Mollymauk,” she says weakly.

 

“You have one too, then?”

 

Yasha pulls up the fur on her shoulder.

 

Mollymauk inspects his name, fingers lightly grazing the lettering. “Well then,” he says, clasping his hands together. “I suppose we should get you set up with one of the nicer cots.”

 

\--

 

Molly is so different from Zuala, and yet there’s something there that’s the same, and Yasha doesn’t know what to feel.

 

What she does know is that Molly attaches himself to her but doesn’t push, that he likes to practice card tricks on her and asked her for input as to what tattoo he should weave around her name on his shoulder-- darker grey than it had been on Zuala’s skin, but still written in Celestial. She learns that the script on her own shoulder is Infernal, and that Molly has missing memories, too, but it’s all just blank and he likes it that way. He tells her that he woke up with the eyes on his skin and nothing else, that her name appeared only after he’d joined the circus. He tells her lots of things, and she tells him almost nothing, and somehow he’s okay with that.

 

Finally, one night, as rain beats against their tent and they sit in lantern-light cleaning their respective swords, Yasha decides she’s not.

 

“Mollymauk?” she asks, pausing with the sword across her lap.

 

Molly looks up, the light dancing in his eyes. “Hmmm?”

 

“You weren’t my first,” she says quietly.

 

He blinks. Yasha can see him running the possibilities of what she means through his head, and knows he settles on the right one because his response is simply a soft “oh.”

 

She nods. He waits as she turns her sword over and runs her cloth over the blade. “I had wings, too, before the gap I told you about. That’s where the mark was.”

 

Molly sets his sword on his bedroll next to him. “What kind of soulmate?”

 

Yasha stares at herself in the metal of her blade. “We were married,” she says. She turns it again and wipes it again, even though it’s already clean. “Zuala. Her name was Zuala.”

 

“And she’s gone?”

 

“I think… I’m almost certain. Our tribe didn’t… soulmates didn’t really matter. We married in secret and they found out, and--” _she told me to go-- “_ I ran. They certainly killed her when I did. I was… too much of a coward to check my wings, and then the next thing I remember is waking up months later with your name on my shoulder and my wings were almost all gone. So yes she’s… she’s gone.”

 

Molly’s just watching her, and the look on his face makes Yasha’s chest ache. She closes her eyes.

 

“But she’s still a part of me, and so maybe that’s why I hated the thought of you almost until I met you. I don’t anymore, but…” She takes a deep breath and opens her eyes, surprised to find that Molly has walked around the lantern set up between them and is kneeling in front of her. “I just thought you should know,” she says softly.

 

Molly leans forward and presses a kiss to her forehead, a hand on each of her shoulders. “She’s the person you keep picking those flowers for,” he says.

 

She didn’t know he’d noticed. “There weren’t many where we were from,” she says.

 

“Do you want to talk about her?” Molly asks.

 

Yasha hesitates. “I-- with you, yes. Tonight, maybe… not?”

 

He nods. “Well then, care to help me with a trick?”

 

\--

 

Molly doesn’t press, but he does bring Yasha a book with a four leaf clover pressed into the pages a few days later, and she’s pretty sure she knows what he’s suggesting she do. She confirms her suspicion later when she sees him smile knowingly as she presses a flower between the pages.

 

She tells him more about Zuala over time, and he listens, and she’s not really sure the exact moment it happens but she knows without a doubt that she loves him. Differently than she loves Zuala, much differently, but she loves him all the same.

 

Perhaps it’s Yasha’s acceptance of her connection to Molly that makes it feel like less of a betrayal when, months later, new names begin to appear faintly on her skin when she meets a group of mismatched travelers in an inn.

 

\--

**Author's Note:**

> thanks to twinvax on tumblr for inspiring me to actually start getting this au down in words; feel free to yell at me at nottsbuttons on tumblr!


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